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Thursday, September 20, 2007

Web Centric Marketing

What does this mean? Another fancy marketing term used to lure in the un-marketing savvy client? Maybe, but sometimes marketing folks create marketing terms for things so they can say what might take a paragraph to say in three little words. Isn't that one of the reasons people need help with marketing in the first place? Doh! Yes, even I have been a bit Simpsonized - a-ha! There is a marketing term right there! Is it easier to say:

a.) I've been Simpsonized?OR...b.) I now say things that are often said on the Simpsons because I live in the state where the American public decided the Simpsons live?

Sooo - what is web centric? (Comments would be cool here since there haven't been any in a while and my tracking devices show that people are indeed reading my blogs!)

Web centric is providing marketing services based on...yes! The Web! That means your website must be the focus and all other marketing umbrella items swirl around the website. And, here is a BIG, dirty, industry secret - lots of old school advertising firms don't want to play that way because then they won't get their big advertising commissions, because figuring how to make money online is new, unchartered, and scary territory to those folks who have shunned such activities as online dating (yes, of course, I have fully embraced such activities, although that doesn't mean it isn't still unchartered territory).

In my fervor to start my own public relations business in Vermont, I am in a continual quest to network with folks who are embracing this web centric style of marketing. In my journey, I have come across two I would like to give kudos to here:

Shark Communications - I did a lot of research of agencies who did not offer in house public relations services and how I might be of service to them and them to me, and the one that sparked the most marketing fun and excitement in our fields of work was the gang over at the end of Battery Street at Shark Communications - www.sharkinteractive.com. These guys (and gals) are ALL about the web and I must give Principal, Pete Jacobs, the credit for broadening my vocabulary to use the marketing term "web centric." I also thank them for giving me the opportunity to work with an agency to forge ahead with all sorts of new media ideas, concepts, tactics and all those other fun marketing words we like to use.

Shadow Productions - I have just started working with these folks as a vendor for electronic press kits, interactive press information, and the more "theatrical" side of marketing and am also pleased to say, my first meeting with them sprouted all sorts of new ideas that continue to position me more and more as a professional storyteller than just some PR person than ever! And that, makes me rest easy at night - even if I stay up too late writing blogs! Check them out too - www.shadowprod.com.

2 comments:

The "Web-Centric" idea is really a great way for companies to organize their marketing programs and figure out budgets. "Web Centric" gives you a core destination and then you can test online marketing versus offline, etc. I see most interactive agencies like Shark and new media mavens (like you, Rachel) instinctively executing it for clients but traditional ad agencies still putting "a web site over here, a couple of ads over here, but we're not sure how it all connects."

There has been a not too subtle change over the last 10 years in the way we go about living our daily life; nowadays, I think a lot of people (or at least all those with access to the Internet) whenever they need something or are looking for something, the first thing that comes to their mind is "The Internet"; whether it is to look up a movie time, research a rare parasite or, look for the wildest ideas regarding the origin of the universe. This is by no means a coincidence; every web-centric mind knows it (and has known it for a while) and tries to do everything they can to make sure this centeredness expands and never contracts again. The one thing to keep in mind is that we still live in a world where billions of people have never used the Internet (hard to believe but it’s true). Therefore the idea of a web-centric way of life or at least of doing business is still in the early stages of development. A good deal of technological efforts are being made so that each one of us can permanently live a web-centric kind of life, if we allow ourselves to do that.